The call
Erick came home from work very tired. For the past two years he had been working for a large dairy company in a city six hours away from his birthplace. The accounting paperwork had exhausted him, so much so that he had neglected his girlfriend. They only saw each other in the evenings via video chat and physically only at the end of the month, as long as he wasn't working.
For Erick the most important thing was to have economic stability, to be able to support a family with everything they needed, for that he had to dedicate himself fully to work and earn as much money as possible. Only then could he ask his fiancée to move in with him and formalize their relationship. However, work was sucking the life out of Erick, changing so much that his fiancée no longer recognized him.
Erick lay down on the bed and looking up at the whitish ceiling adorned with a few almost imperceptible cobwebs in the corners, he picked up his cell phone and dialed his fiancée. With the drowsiness of the heavy day, he was about to chat with his beloved Cecilia as he did every night. His high-end device emitted an almost hypnotic sound, making the poor man sleepy.
Erick dozed off as he kept trying to talk to Cecilia. When he took it for granted that he would not talk to his beloved that night, he gave up ringing and put his cell phone aside. As he closed his eyes in his sleep, he heard the soft melody and the loud vibration of his cell phone. With his rough, sleep-ridden hand, he fumbled with the electronic device.
He brought the phone up to his face, which had a few moles decorating his rugged features. The light of the cell phone reflected on his honey-colored eyes, that honey that conquered many women, but those eyes had lost their luster. Now they looked lifeless, with a great sadness and tiredness.
He clicked the green button, but rarely this time Cecilia only connected by call, no video chat. "Hello, love, is something wrong," Erick was asking with a haunting tone.
"Hello, sweetheart. No, no, no... Don't worry I'm just a little busy here," the woman replied with worried pauses.
"Turn on the video chat, please." Erick asked with an imposing tone. The very nervous girl let the time pass, exasperating the man on the other side of the screen, "Turn on the chat once and for all!" Erick shouted.
"Ok, but calm down. You're very upset. You've changed too much lately, I miss the loving and kind Erick, that man who made me special. Now you're just a man who cares about money and little or nothing else. to know about your loved ones." Cecilia spoke to the point of breaking her voice, at the memories of a past full of love and happiness.
Erick on line listened to the subtle sobs of his fiancée, making him feel terrible. "Forgive me, my love, it's just that my life has become a little tangled and I'm terribly tired, I don't think I can go on like this anymore, I miss you too much." Suddenly through the furrows of his dark circles under his eyes a few tears were falling.
"I understand you, my life, I just can't get used to this new time. Everything seems so unreal to me, two years ago we were so happy and full of many projects, you were so enthusiastic about the future and now you are just a tired and jaded man of life, without time, without love." Cecilia's words took Erick back to a cyclical instant of memories, where he had been immensely happy.
Erick was unaware of this new tired man, listless of life, unhappy and with a sadness that accompanied his heart throughout the day. "What have I become? I swore I would never change and now I am this terrible demon, dominated by materialism and superfluous vanities," the man spoke, exhuming that being lost among obligations and routines.
In the darkness of his room and with the light of the cell phone bathing his sadness, he waited with terrible anguish for Cecilia's answer, "Sorry, my life, I just want you to be here, like in the old days, where we only had our love and that was enough." Cecilia dismissed sobs between sentences and memories.
Erick had a jolt of reality, he thought of everything he had been enduring Cecilia during all that time and he barely realized it, his routine tiredness had blocked his emotions and had buried that man who bewitched that woman and now he felt he was losing her, moving farther and farther away from her side.
"Hello, hello, hello..." Cecilia repeated from the other side of the line, but a repetitive sound pierced her ear, then a silence invaded the girl's cell phone. She was crying in her bed and that night was one where Morpheus did not come, being sadness and loneliness her companions of pain.
The next day, Cecilia called again and again, but there was no answer. She had always worried about Erick, and something in her heart told her that something was wrong. The trip would be a long one, but she could no longer bear the anguish of not knowing anything about Erick.
She took her small pink suitcase, somewhat worn by the years, packed the most necessary things and went out to take a cab, leaving her parents and practically running away from home. As he walked through the humid night street looking for a cab, he heard his cell phone and answered it with his heart and soul. "Hello, hello...," she answered effusively to the point of tears.
"Where do you think you're going, miss," Erick spoke behind her. Cecilia turns to see and meeting those eyes that made her fall in love, that sparkle was still there, she ran as fast as she could and rushed to that tired man, but now he was free and could be with her to start a new life. Together!
The end
Text authored by:
Camilo Torres
DRA
¡Thanks for you reading!